The art known as "orientalist", offers us an idealized, romantic and sensual vision of the East built from Europe, which became an established theme during the nineteenth century. Countless painters represented all sorts of scenes set in scenarios of the Arab countries of North Africa and Middle East.

In landscapes and interiors the exotic contrasts between the dazzling light of the desert and the dark interiors, the exuberant colors of the clothes and the seduction of the flesh, especially in the scenes of baths and harems, were highlighted. When Ingres painted a colorful view of a Turkish bath, he succeeded in making this eroticized vision of the East acceptable to the general public.

In this thematic section I will collect samples of the most remarkable orientalism in painting.

Ludwig Deutsch, Austrian Orientalist painter French nationalized, born in Vienna in 1855.

After high school he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1875 and moved to France in 1878, studied with Jean-Paul Laurens, who owes his academic style. He specialized in orientalist painting.

From 1883 he made four trips to Egypt and the Oriental themes that dominated his works brought him unprecedented praise. The polished surfaces and extremely precise realism of his paintings are based on an extensive collection of photographs he made in Cairo.

In 1900 he won the gold medal in the Universal Exhibition of Paris and shortly after acquired French nationality. After the war, he often appears in the catalogs under the name "Louis Deutsch".

His style is similar to that of Rudolf Ernst - portraits and interiors predominate in medium-sized canvases. In 2013 one of his canvases was sold for more than 2 million pounds in London.

Margaret Murray Cookesley was a British painter born c.1950 in Dorsetshire.

She was trained in Belgium and London. A visit to Constantinople brought her a commission to paint a portrait of the son of the Sultan. No sittings were accorded her, the Sultan thinking a photograph sufficient for the artist to work from. Fortunately Mrs. Cookesley was able to make a sketch of her subject while following the royal carriage in which he was riding. The portrait proved so satisfactory to the Sultan that he not only decorated the artist, but invited her to make portraits of some of his wives, for which Mrs. Cookesley had not time.

Cookesley’s success at the Constantinople court is noteworthy: she received the honour of the Order of the Chefakat and the Medaille des Beaux-Arts, which indicates her ability to appeal both as a person and as an artist to her Ottoman audience and sponsors. But equally important is Clement’s acknowledgement of Cookesley’s success in Britain, both in Royal Academy exhibitions and with the public at large.

We know regrettably little about this female painter whose oeuvre remains for the most part to be traced, catalogued and analysed.

In contrast to the perceived cohesion of French Orientalism as a distinctive School—the Salon des Peintres Orientalistes Français was established in 1893—British Orientalism has been repeatedly characterised as not only “lesser known” and “less prolific”, but as more “individualistic”, which apparently makes a unified exhibition or analysis the greater challenge (Thornton, The Orientalists 8; “Introduction” to Eastern Encounters 9; Roberts-Jones 17).

Remarkably little is known about the career of the extremely gifted French painter, Jean Discart. He was born in the Italian city of Modena in 1856 and enrolled in a history of painting course at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts at the age of seventeen. The course was taught by the famous German classical painter, Anselm Feuerbach (1829-1880), and among Discart's fellow students were Ludwig Deutsch (1855-1935) and Carl von Merode (1853-1909). After Feuerbach retired from the academy, Discart, Deutsch and Merode applied to study under Leopold Carl Müller, who refused them admittance. This prompted Discart and Deutsch to travel to Paris where they were no doubt immersed in the cosmopolitan art world, surrounded by their contemporaries. Perhaps it was the combined influences of his classical training in Vienna with his Parisian exposure that led to an interesting career for Discart who focused on Orientalist works.

Discart first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1884 and painted Orientalist subjects through to the 1920s, rendering work exquisite in their detail, richness and understanding of light and texture. Much like his contemporary, Rudolf Ernst (1854-1932), Discart's compositions incorporated the heavy use of artifacts such as metal ware, pottery, textiles and instruments, set against elaborate backdrops of sculpted stone, painted tiles or carved woodwork. The temptation to bring back found treasures from their travels was deeply felt by the Orientalists, who desired to fill their studios and homes with artifacts illustrating the craftsmanship of the East as a source of inspiration for paintings executed off-site.

Charles, the eldest brother of painter Gottfried Wilda (1862-1922), studied at the Academy of Vienna under Carl Muller. He produced paintings and etchings during his life. As an Orientalist, Wilda was attracted to the cultures of North Africa and the Arab states, cultures he felt were exotic and romantic. He exhibited his work frequently at expositions in Berlin and Vienna between 1887-1906. Wilda's work was also represented at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900.

Giulio Rosati was a prolific Italian academic painter born in 1858. Mainly Orientalist, belongs to the so-called Italian Scuola.

He studied drawing and painting in Rome, in the Academy of San Luca from 1875, and had as teachers the academicians Dario Querci and Francesco Podesti, and the Spanish painter Luis Álvarez Catalá.

Orientalism, in both the choice of themes and pictorial taste, soon became his favorite subject, in special places and personalities of the Maghreb, of which he painted very colorful personages, as if they came from a history of adventures. He never traveled to the places he painted, and his documentation, therefore, came not from direct experience, but from photographs or objects that can be found in those years in Rome, where he resided.

He painted oil, but with much more frequency and watercolor, technique that came to dominate.

Rudolf Ernst was an Austro-French painter, printmaker and ceramics painter born in Vienna in 1854, who is best known for his orientalist motifs. He exhibited in Paris under the name "Rodolphe Ernst".

He was the son of an architect and, encouraged by his father, began studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna at the age of fifteen. He spent some time in Rome, copying the old masters, and continued his lessons in Vienna with August Eisenmenger and Anselm Feuerbach.

In 1876, he settled in Paris. The following year, he participated in his first artists' salon. He later made trips to Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Constantinople to study and document what he saw there.

He began as genre painter but, from 1885, he devoted himself exclusively to paintings with orientialist motifs; especially Islamic scenes, such as the interiors of mosques. He also painted harem scenes and portrayals of everyday life in North Africa, based on photographs and prints as well as his own memories from his travels in those regions.

In 1905, he moved to Fontenay-aux-Roses where he set up a shop to produce faience tiles with orientalist themes. He decorated his home in Ottoman style and lived a reclusive life. He died in 1932, but the exact date of death was apparently not recorded.

Adolf Schreyer was a German painter born in 1828, associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.

He studied art first at the Städel Institute in his native town, and then at Stuttgart and Munich. He painted many of his favourite subjects in his travels in the East. He first accompanied Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxis through Hungary, Wallachia, Russia and Turkey; then, in 1854, he followed the Austrian army across the Wallachian frontier. In 1856 he went to Egypt and Syria, and in 1861 to Algiers. In 1862 he settled in Paris, but returned to Germany in 1870; and settled at Cronberg near Frankfurt, where he died in 1899.

Schreyer was, and is still, especially esteemed as a painter of horses, of peasant life in Wallachia and Moldavia, and of battle incidents. His work is remarkable for its excellent equine draughtsmanship, and for the artist's power of observation and forceful statement; and has found particular favour among French and American collectors. Of his battle-pictures there are two at the Schwerin Gallery, and others in the collection of Count Mensdorff-Pouilly and in the Raven Gallery, Berlin. The Metropolitan Museum, New York owns three of Schreyer's oriental paintings, and many of his best pictures are in the Rockefeller family, Vanderbilt family, John Jacob Astor, William Backhouse Astor, Sr., August Belmont, and William Walters collections. At the Kunsthalle in Hamburg is his Wallachian Transport Train, and at the Staedel Institute, Frankfort, are two of his Wallachian scenes.

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